The guild problem

Solving the Guild “problem”

I did not make this post to rant about how hard it is to find a guild, or to rant about anything for that matter. I simply want to find out if more than me sees a problem with the way guilds are currently working in Guild Wars, and if so, discuss what can be done to improve the system.

As most of you know, Guild Wars is packed with small guilds with less than five members.
Now, first I want to ask you all; do you think it's a problem that there are lots of one-man guilds floating around? I certainly do.

The reason I think this is a problem, is simple. A guild should be more than a cape. It should be about a community of like-minded people. Though this is a reasoning many people may disagree with (I can hear people screaming “OMG!! I cant create a guild to get a phat cape just because you think a guild is something more??!” already), I'm sure a lot of people agree that the community as a whole would benefit more from having fewer guilds but with more members. I'm not talking about guilds with 100+ members, but more like 10-30 members (although the number is irrelevant as long as there's a bit more than two members).

The “problem” as I see it is: it's too easy to create a guild.

The Sorrow's Furnace update introduced a 100g cost for inviting new members to a guild.
This may make some guilds more picky about recruiting. This sounds good on paper, but may actually do the opposite of what at least I would consider good. Now, I'm not sure what made Anet introduce the gold cost, but I assume they want it to be harder to get into a guild, and thus, limiting the amount of “guild jumpers” (my reasoning for this assumption is based on the faction system, which disables faction gained from GvG until you've been a member of the given guild for a certain period of time).

So what can be done?

- As I said earlier, guilds should be harder to create and maintain. I'm not talking about an endless grind to even start the guild, but simply a basic set of game-play elements or whatever one might call it.

- Other MMORPG's (EverQuest for instance), requires several people to found a guild. That generally means that instead of going up to the guild registrar alone and creating a guild “just like that”, you would have to go up to him with a full group, and everyone would have to confirm the creation of the guild. Of course, they would all become members as well.

- Increase the cost of creating a guild. Last time I checked, it cost 100-200g to create a guild. What about increasing this to 1k?

- A minimum member count. If there are less than 3 or so members in the guild, it automatically gets disbanded after say 10 hours.

- Add an in-game guild merge function, which merges two guilds together. The guilds may chose to keep the name of either one, or to create a new name. All members would get moved over to the destination guild with their position intact. In order to make it work though, the possibility of more than one guild leader should be implemented as well.

- Generally make it more desirable to have a guild with more members.

Would appreciate any feedback/input on this.

And for the lazy; this line summarizes the (lengthy) post:
Make guilds what they ought to be; a small in-game community, not just a cape.

Last weekend some members of our guild got together to do one of the Sorrow's Furnace missions. When 4 of us were standing together we got a few comments like "woa, 4 people from the same guild in the same place!" and when 5-6-7 showed up no one could believe it and some people said they'd never seen that before

I don't think you can easily fix it now, I thought from day 1 the tombs/sigil scheme was a bad idea. I think a seperate tournament for getting a guild hall would have been much better and forced guilds that wanted a guild hall to have 8+ members. People could still create a guild to get a cape (I think the price is arbitrary) but to get a guild hall they would have to get a minimum number of people that wanted to pvp to win a tournament. (There would be no other reward for that tournament, so it would mostly be new guilds) The tournament would also have been a good intermediary step between the arenas and the tombs. (Obviously tombs would need to have much better rewards as well)

BTW - I believe the 100 gold invite was to stop people from blindly inviting everyone that wasn't in a guild into their guild.

Some people like smaller guilds, They use it to just hang out withthere mates and have a link.

Not everyone wants to use there guild for GvG

The Guild I am with is a small guild, and we use it mostly for going out together in PvE and exploring and having a good laugh.

I think small guilds are as much a part of the guild wars as a large guild is.

i think small guilds are fine, but the guilds that are say, less than 3 or so should be disbanned.

i do like your idea of the ingame merger function - would be nice.

Shmash

Agree.

Ah, that makes sense.

I myself like smaller guilds as well, the guild I'm in is also a small (I wish we were a few more though). We are about 8 people in it, but I think there's a big difference between a guild of 8 and a guild of 2. The "problem" IMHO, is the hundreds of guilds with only one or two people in it. Maybe it's only me, but I would think it was cool if there were more medi-sized guilds around.

I'm a member of a very small guild (9 or so total members, with rarely more than 3 active at any one time), and definitely think that such guilds are a problem. They make it very difficult if not impossible to participate in a well-oiled team environment (be that Tombs, GvG, or areas like Sorrows Furnace), and thus take away one of the greatest aspects of this game. I get giddy if I can 3 or more people I know in one party.

In any case, the guild merge idea is a good one; however, I don't think it would really solve the problem. I currently know of at least 2 other guilds which are in the same situation as my own and with whom my own guild has discussed mergers before. It wasn't a neat merge function that was stopping us; there was no lack of trust between the guilds. Rather, it was jeapordizing our identities that was the problem. Each of us was a close-knit group of friends that was very attached to our own guild's theme (everything from mindset, to cape, to name), and no one wanted to give up their sense of self by merging the guilds. I doubt my case is unique, and as such, I would think that a guild merge function would not be a proper solution (though I definitely support the idea!).

I would propose some means to join with other guilds without actually losing your own. If there were some way for multiple small guilds to band together in order to communicate/group for things which are at the current time limited to a single guild, it would help greatly. I do believe I've heard something about guild "alliances" to come in the future, though I don't remember where and can't substantiate that, and I greatly hope that these alliances might enable small guilds to band together.

If the 2 other guilds I mentioned earlier in my post were able to ally with each other and my own guild in such a way that we could communicate in a single chat channel, see when each other was online, and thus group effectively, it would have been as though my own guild was three times the size it is currently without sacrificing the identity that my guild has worked towards.

I'm in the exactly same situation. My guild has also considered a merger, but it's hard to get working when the guilds in question are "well-defined".

This is a great idea. I've heard talk about an alliance feature as well, but couldnt really see how such a thing could be implemented. However, the newly added Guest function could possibly be extended to include a guest guild. That way, you could simply invite a whole guild to be your guilds guests.
It would probably handle the problem a lot better than a guild merger function.

Also, if a merge function were implemented in-game, maybe it should be possible to merge for a given time only? Sort of a temporary merge.

This is kinda funny, I have the opposite problem, my guild is too big, I need more room =P

but ya the 4 billion 1-3 person guilds really should be cut down a little.

If people want to be in their own guilds i don't see the harm in it if they enjoy themselves, or are with friends etc..

I used to be in a guild of 4 people back when first started the game (long times ago ) Me and my friends enjoyed it and we eventually continued and got more members, started tombing, gvg etc.

I'm now in a guild of 9 people, we win hoh pretty much when we want.. just don't see a problem with it as it is. Numbers is no problem. let people do as they wish

I like the small guilds; what we need is an "inter-guild" chat mechanism for "sibling guilds". That is, if two guild leaders like each other; they should be able to add each other to the "sibling" guild list. Then, any chats on the "Inter-Guild" channel go to everyone in your guild, and all sibling guilds.

IxChel, that's what I was trying to get at in my post. I was somewhat faltering for the words, but you summed it up wonderfully. Sometimes the small guys just can't muster enough people at any given time to make a full party of 8. Giving small guilds that wish to ally themselves together a way to communicate as easily as a guild communicates within itself will really clear up the problem.

As an aside, do you think any restrictions would need to be put into place for such a system? If near-max guilds had many similar sister-guilds, I wonder how long it would take before the guild chat became bloated to the point of uselessness.

Agree. However, I still think that there should be a minimum member requirement of 2-3 members.

I can see one potetional problem with this though; If you have another guild (guild B) in a "sibling" list, and that guild has another guild (guild C) in their "sibling" which isn't on your list, it will be very hard to communicate since if guild B is communicating with guild C, your guild would get half the conversation, and it would all probably become very confusing and "untidy". Any thoughts about this?


My thoughts exactly. Some sort of restriction would definatly be necessary for this to work.

EDIT: A solution to this problem would be a /tell guild command. That way you would walk around the problems which occurs when having a public chat with all the "sibling" guilds.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with these simple suggestions. Automatically disbanding any guilds that have had less than X members for a period of time longer than Y days would put an obstacle in the way of the one-man-guilds without turning guild creation into some sort of "grind".

What I mean is that this method seems better than simply charging more money at the time of creation because if you did that, you would be forcing people to grind a bit to be able to create a guild (and we know ANet doesn't want to scare away the casual gamer) - and after that, they wouldn't have to worry about maintaining the guild any more than they do now...

But if you add a minimum number of members for the whole course of the guild's existance, it isn't an incentive to grind, it's an incentive to get together with other players towards a goal (in order to create a guild in the first place)... and after that, it *continues* to be an incentive to keep on interacting with other people (because if for some reason, in the future, you let your number of members drop below the minimum for longer than X days, your guild is disbanded).

This is another important thing. There should be some advantage to playing with your guild members. I think GW could be a much better online experience in terms of promoting interaction between players if it really encouraged you to get together with people *more than once*. I think this is something this game really lacks compared to other online games... and I don't mean to say that's because ANet lets you play the game single-player with henchies if you choose to... that's the least of my worries. Indeed, even if the game had no henchies, I'd get a random PUG for each quest I had to do, and I'd meet lots of people... *once*. Then I'd never meet most of them again - there might be people out there right now who have never taken henchies on any mission, beat the game on four different characters, and made a total of zero friends because there is too little incentive to make more permanent associations with other players.

GW just hit a million copies sold... what are the odds that you'll get to meet the same person more than once unless you have a reason to *try to*? Well, then give people a reason to try to!

Now, what if there was something like a small XP bonus or morale boost for each member of the same guild that's in a group? I'd be more inclined to organize guild activities and to get together with people who share the same type of interest in the game. I'd keep an eye on every nice player I meet and ask him if he wants to join my guild, or if he wants to merge his three-people-guild with my five-people-guild so we're stronger at the quests... next thing you know, you've got a dozen people that play together all the time - an active guild... more than just a dozen people scattered all over the game, who happen to wear similar capes. Currently, there seems to be a lot of guildmates who have never met most of the other people in their guild, because they were each recruited by different people and never really had a reason to group with each other... they just chat on guild chat while each of them plays a separate game.

My guild has quite a number of people in it, but the way I see it is this...

Who cares?!?! So what if someone has created a guild just to get a cape. Maybe they want a cape, but are more of a solo type of person. I don't see how it affects any of you in any way. Save for the fact that maybe a Guild name you want may be taken, but if you're already in a guild, then that is hardly a problem.

There is no way that it affects any of you. So if someone wants to create a guild just to have a cape, then let them have their fun. Not everyone plays the game with others. Some people for some reason enjoy playing solo.

I agree 100%.

It's people's own choice if they want to have their own guild one man guild. In warcraft 3 I wanted to have (and still do) to have a clan among my friends but it takes 10 people. I never joined a diffrent clan cause I never saw the point. I just wanted to be with my friends and that's good enough for me.

[QUOTE=jBTW - I believe the 100 gold invite was to stop people from blindly inviting everyone that wasn't in a guild into their guild.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, now they just whisper you instead. I actually left a guild shortly after the update because it was pretty much dead, and within the hour I had two whispers from people asking me if I wanted to join their guild. Which to me is more annoying than a random invite.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the invite fee has increased the "COME JOIN MY GUILD WE HAVE CAPES HALL AND COOL PPL OMG!!1!" spam in towns.

As for the OP, I personally don't care if someone is in a tiny guild. I'm sure they have their reasons, and if they're satisfied with their guild situation, why should I care. It's not like it affects me in any way.

grouping with guild memeber should increase your drops

Ya know, what if i like having my own private island? And being in my own guild so i can change capes whenever without anyone complaining. Remeber, there is PvP and PvE. I play PvE, and I like doing whatever I want to.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=30440

For the record, I don't think they should get rid of small guilds either, even 1 man guilds. However it is sad that a large number of the GvG battles we do are against 4-6 humans and some henchmen, so I favor non-essential benefits for guilds that meet some minimum requirements.

A few things that others have thought of.

1. as above the umbrella guild, the ability to link a number of guilds together but still keep independence.

2. The ability to leave messages if the person is not online. Not strictly guild related, but it would make comunication easier.

3. At the end of a "level / fight" have a little box pop up saying would you like to add any of these people to your friends list, and you can just put a tick against their name to do so.

4. Make it so you cant have a guild cape untill you have X number of members.

(these are not my ideas so i cant take any credit for them (or any flaming).